


Thread

by bluewoodensea



Series: ask him to dance [4]
Category: Band of Brothers (TV 2001)
Genre: Developing Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Post-Canon, Post-War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-23
Updated: 2021-01-23
Packaged: 2021-03-15 12:15:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28938357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluewoodensea/pseuds/bluewoodensea
Summary: The day’s dawned bright and cool. He could be at Sunday morning mass but instead he’s here, not long after washing up their breakfast things. In the next room, Jack Denny is singingNevertheless I’m in love with youon the gramophone. There are other things he might be doing, but for now he’s just leaning against the worktop, drinking the last of his coffee and watching Earl.
Relationships: Earl McClung/Joseph Toye
Series: ask him to dance [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1026912
Comments: 6
Kudos: 8





	Thread

**Author's Note:**

> written on impulse late one night and [originally posted on tumblr](https://onelungmcclung.tumblr.com/post/640832858807730176/midnight-impulse-mctoye-fic-set-in-the-same). I considered it slightly tangential but was _very easily persuaded_ to post it here.

The day’s dawned bright and cool. He could be at Sunday morning mass but instead he’s here, not long after washing up their breakfast things. In the next room, Jack Denny is singing _Nevertheless I’m in love with you_ on the gramophone. There are other things he might be doing, but for now he’s just leaning against the worktop, drinking the last of his coffee and watching Earl.

Earl’s mending a shirt at the kitchen table, because the light is better in here than in the little living room next door, at the back of the house. The shirt is torn down the back of the shoulder and he’s sewing it up, though Joe thinks patching it would work better.

He’s reminded of watching Bill Kiehn press Earl’s uniform, because Earl always forgot. Something about that’s always stuck in his mind, the way Earl seemed like a natural soldier and completely indifferent to it. He didn’t give anyone shit, just didn’t seem to care about much outside of combat. Maybe it was something he secretly, irrationally liked about McClung, even if it made inspections and parades more work; better someone like him than someone like Sobel or Peacock, who knew rules better than combat.

It’s on the tip of his tongue to make some joking pass – like, _how about you wear torn clothes more often_ – but he’s unused, still, to flirting with a man. Sometimes he thinks one of them’s on the verge of saying something sentimental, but he hasn’t, and Earl hasn’t. It’s hard to find the words for the things he’d like to say.

He knows Earl does stuff for him, without saying anything and as if without thinking about it, like making sure one of Joe’s crutches is always upstairs and one of them’s always downstairs. Joe looks for things to do for him in turn, like cooking for them, or buying the cigarettes Earl likes. Not that Earl smokes much, usually; they usually end up sharing cigarettes, the way they did in Bastogne to make them last longer.

He hated Bastogne, that goes without saying, but he liked sharing a foxhole with Earl: he was never careless or distracted or loud, even if Joe told him to shut up the first few times he heard Earl murmuring to himself. Earl saw everything, heard everything, knew if a rustle of movement was a man or bird or rat. When he thinks of that time, Joe feels an odd surge of protectiveness for him, against that vicious inescapable cold, even though they suffered it together. Thinks of Earl trying to keep him warm as he slept, thinks of holding onto Earl when he slept against Joe: that half sleep, almost hallucinatory, which was all they ever got, and sometimes he wondered if the cold would kill them.

And then that night, when they managed to keep each other a little warmer, and after he got hit he’d remember it sometimes, with something half guilt and half not, and hope Earl was safe, and wonder why that felt different from hoping the others were safe. Sometimes, between the morphine, and the hospital boredom, and the fury at losing his leg and the guilt over being taken off the line and how it had cost Bill trying to save him.

He’s never really said any of that to either of them. Not to Earl, not to Bill.

He’s not quite used to the weight of the prosthesis yet, that feels half support, half deadweight, both freeing him up and slowing him down. Sometimes he feels pain in the part he lost to the second amputation. He was warned about that but he doesn’t understand why it happens. He wonders how long it’s supposed to last.

For now, he just watches Earl: the way his elbows rest on the table as he sews, the slow rhythm of the needle through the cloth, his sleeves pushed halfway up his forearms, the morning light illuminating him sidelong through the kitchen window.

He knows if he said anything Earl would dismiss it or argue, but still, sometimes he thinks Earl is braver than him. They wouldn’t be here together, now, if Earl hadn’t shown up, that afternoon in March. Joe would have thought of him but never succeeded in reaching out to him, and he’d have a different life, a more normal one he supposes, but not a better one. He’d rather have this, though they’re not supposed to have it, not even to want it. And he thinks there would have always been a splinter of him that wanted it, and he could have tried to disown it but it would have always been there, no matter how deeply buried.

They’ve been out drinking with Bill and Babe a few times. He doesn’t think either of them guesses, about him and Earl, and he hopes if either of them ever suspects they won’t ask, won’t say anything to anyone, won’t let it change anything.

He’s working in a factory now, and Earl does shifts delivering mail so he’s often out by the time Joe gets up. The alarm wakes them both, of course, and Earl switches it off and kisses the side of his head and gets ready quietly enough that Joe falls asleep not knowing if he’s left or not. His day ends before Joe’s and Joe likes that part, Earl being here when he gets back, less tired than him. They don’t split expenses evenly, because Earl doesn’t get paid anywhere near what a white guy would, even now, even after all they’ve been through and the official praises. Joe supposes he should have been pissed off about it before they started living together, too, but maybe he didn’t know or maybe he just didn’t think about it.

They get by. Like always.

Earl ties off the thread, pulls the needle free and shuts it up in the old tin that’s by way of being their sewing repair kit. He stretches the stiffness from his fingers. Joe never noticed, until living together, that Earl’s lefthanded; comfortably ambidextrous for most things, but evidently not that comfortable with sewing. Evidently.

“I’ll patch it for you if you want,” Joe offers.

The corner of Earl’s mouth tugs upwards, deepening the shadows in his face, but he doesn’t look up as he trims down the thread. “Are you saying I can’t sew?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

Earl looks down at the line of neat stitches, that probably won’t hold for long. “Hmm,” is all he says.

Joe rolls his eyes. “Give it here.”

Earl glances across, mildly surprised. “Now?”

“Yeah, might as well.”

There’s a shirt he was given in the hospital and for that reason he was secretly relieved when he tore the sleeve beyond repair. He kept it to use as cleaning rags, but it’s similar enough in weight and colour to Earl’s shirt that he can use it now. He takes it from the third drawer down next to the sink and sits down beside Earl in the other chair. Earl settles back in his seat; no sign of moving anywhere.

“You just going to watch me?”

“You’ve been watching me for twenty minutes,” Earl points out.

Joe can’t deny that, but he’d thought it hadn’t been so long. “That’s because you can’t sew,” he says at last, certain it’s unconvincing.

“Could have told me that sooner.” There’s a warmth in Earl’s eyes, bright as the light falling over them.

“Well,” Joe says, steadily cutting a strip from his old shirt, “you were trying so hard.”

“Fuck you,” Earl says equably, still watching him in a way that makes something tighten pleasurably and painfully in Joe’s chest.

He’s trying not to smile. The record comes to an end; Earl goes to turn it over. A new melody starts up, scratching a little under the needle. Earl comes back and sits down beside Joe again.


End file.
